Fastmarkets decides to amend publication times, holiday pricing schedule for Asian base metals assessments: pricing notice

Fastmarkets has decided to change the publication timing and holiday pricing schedule for a number of the base metals assessments it publishes for the Asian market.

May 14, 2026

Fastmarkets consulted the market on the proposed change between April 3 and May 11, 2026.

Some feedback was received regarding the publication times of nickel pig iron and laterite ore prices. Fastmarkets will adjust the initially proposed publication times accordingly and proceed with the changes.

This decision was first proposed in a methodology note published on April 3 which you can view here.

This notice of the decision was delayed past its original May 11 schedule, and changes will therefore be effective from May 21, instead of May 18 as was originally proposed.

The assessments, which currently follow the UK holiday calendar and are published according to UK working hours, will now follow the China, Singapore or Indonesian holiday calendars and will be published in Chinese or Singapore working hours after the proposed change.

Additionally, Fastmarkets will add cut-off times for acceptance of data submission for several copper assessments.

The purpose of the adjustment is to align the timing to the activity in the relevant markets and ensure that subscribers receive timely and accurate pricing information.

The affected assessments, as well as the new publication times and holiday calendars, are shown in the table:

For more information or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter for any of these prices, please contact pricing@fastmarkets.com and basemetals@fastmarkets.com with the subject heading “RE Asian base metals assessments.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all Fastmarkets pricing methodology and specification documents, go to the Fastmarkets methodology page.

(The publication time for MB-FEN-0008 Nickel pig iron, high-grade NPI content 10-15%, spot, cif China, MB-FEN-0002 Nickel pig iron, high-grade NPI content 10-15%, spot, ddp China, MB-NIO-0001 Nickel ore with 1.8% nickel content, cif China, $/tonne, MB-NO-0002 Laterite ore with 1.5% Ni content, cif China, $/tonne, MB-NIO-0006 Laterite ore with 1.3% Ni content, cif China, $/tonne was erroneously stated as 5-6 pm in the table when this pricing notice was first published. This has been corrected to 6-7pm.)